Had the interviewers any real knowledge of the Banking industry, they would have known that the margins on home loans more than doubled (close to trebling, in the period post crash, til 2 years ago). Hence when they say margins halved; they are still well above the margins made in 2006. So they halved from a base almost 3x historical levels.I guess it depends on where you put the emphasis on statistics, and how much margin is enough. Once they get used to big margins, those big margins become the 'norm'.